Nerves of Steel
by Silberias
Summary: Sherlock has taken a leave from his work at Cambridge to watch over his wife and son. His wife Molly is prone to hysteria, and his son is just eleven and doesn't quite understand how much care must be taken in dealing with Molly. Sherlock, however, does. AU, Onset of WWI!Sherlock.


So I'm frowning at myself for having been able to write this so feel free to frown at me for having written this. I'm beginning to think that I write Misogynist!Misguided!Creeper!Sherlock far, far too well or that I've got some sort of sick attachment to it because I can't seem to stop accidentally writing things like this.

This fic has a first-draft posting over on the **silberias** tumblr blog, and was inspired by a photoset over there. It's all posted there, the photos and such, so feel free to check it out. The photos are of Lou Brealey and Whatshisface in pre-WWI period clothing (I don't know what she's in, but Whatshisface is in that Parade's End thing that broke in the last week or so). They're both quite blonde, as is their kid, and yes. Also, the farther back in time you take your Sherlock AU, the more of a misogynistic bastard he is going to be right up until you get back to the original Doyle's Sherlock in which case he's a right ass.

Also I made him a physicist because a bunch of physicist-y things went down between 1900 and 1915. Yes.

Enjoy!

* * *

"Mummy says there's absolutely no chance of you going off to the war."

Sherlock went to sit next to his son, looking out the window—sighting along to where the boy's eyes were resting. Molly was outside in the garden, supervising the picking of the early fall apples. Her hands were fluttering at her waist, wanting to help but knowing it was against the doctor's orders—she was at her wit's end already, having broken the 'rules' by not confining herself to her rooms. His brave little Molly, always pushing herself to the edges of her comfort zones.

"Your mother suffers from easily aggravated nerves, Brannick, it helps her to believe such inanities. She's also in a delicate condition, with the baby. All that aside, I do not put much stock that I'll be called up. I've a bad leg, remember."

Sherlock would be lying if he said he wasn't hoping for another son to match his eleven year old. Brannick had inherited the yellow-gold of Molly's hair, and her tipped nose. His wife's brown eyes had not made it into their son, though. He was happy to try again, though, just as Molly was happy to have fallen pregnant again. They were lucky, though that they differed in age. She was six years his junior, just seventeen when they'd married twelve years ago. It was easier for her now than it would be in a few years to carry another child.

"Mummy is happier when you're around. Whenever you leave to Cambridge for the Autumn Term she is very skittish—the only people she'll see for several days after are her cousin Mrs. Stamford and Grandmere."

There was just the slightest crack in Brannick's voice as he spoke—Sherlock's lips quirked into a bit of a smile, thinking that soon enough his son would be a tall and striking young man just as he himself had been. And he would grow up with a healthy sense of responsibility, just as Sherlock's elder brother had. There was something quite positive to be said for having large age gaps between children.

"Why do you think I've transferred most of my research here? Your mother requires constant care—a curious affliction women of our rank seem to share is a proclivity towards extreme delicacy. I don't trust a doctor to know and correctly treat my wife's changes in mood and attitude, however, so I spend as much time as possible here with her."

He had believed the doctors on one thing, though. That Molly's nerves might worsen after having a second child. That she might begin to suffer from hysteria, and could possibly harm one or both of their children. Sherlock didn't want to believe that his sweet wife was capable of it, but he erred on the side of caution. He had asked his brother to arrange an emergency sabbatical—though he'd told Molly that it was a regular one. She did not need the extra stress of thinking that she was causing trouble or difficulty for anyone.

"She always says there's nothing wrong with her though, Father." Sherlock smiled, putting one hand on his son's shoulder, pointing out the window with the other.

"Do you see her though?" The afternoon light made Molly light up like an angel, albeit an angel who was seven months pregnant and twitchy.

"Savior of my soul she might be; and a sweet and loving mother to you—do you not see that there IS something amiss there?" From there he picked apart Molly's every nervous twitch and giggle, every trembling allowance. He made it quite clear how lucky his wife was that he'd suffered a severe accident in his teens which had nearly lamed him. Otherwise, he knew that he might well be prevailed upon to join the war effort. If he left he would be leaving his not even teenaged son in charge of the household, to look after Molly when she was most likely to devolve into complete hysterics. Sherlock would never leave such a task to so young a boy, not after his own father had left Mycroft with the same task years ago.

* * *

Later that evening he retired to his study, to reflect and to do calculations—there were some very promising papers by a young Frenchman named Brillouin, along with some topics floated by Arnold Sommerfeld to support Einstein's work. He'd actually gotten some sad news that Brillouin was planning on serving in this stupid war—Sherlock knew about war. Several of his closest friends had gone away to fight the Boers in South Africa—those that had come back had never been the same. Their minds, so brilliant and so very ALIVE at University, were deadened by the horrors they'd seen of men killing one another.

He didn't move when he heard Molly let herself in, and only mumbled his thanks when she poured him a drink and put it to the side of his papers. She didn't speak for a few moments, instead straightening his desk a bit for him. He did see the tiny smile on her face as she smoothed one hand down the round curve of her abdomen—though she must have seen him looking, because her smile melted away into a slight frown.

"I can't stand the ideas that you put into his head sometimes Sherlock."

"I'm positive I don't know what you mean, Molly."

She took one of his hands away from the steeple he'd made under his chin, putting it against her distended stomach. Even through the layers of her clothing, it warmed his palm. Sherlock wondered what Brannick had done in the last few hours to give away what they'd spoken of—he would have to talk to the boy about privacy and things said in confidence.

"I'm not defenseless, or stupid. You treat me like I don't count in my own life sometimes. And you're teaching him to do the same to some woman who will look into his eyes and fall forever like I did." Here they were. He'd been waiting for them to make an appearance. Her nerves, the chronic condition she'd suffered from for most of their marriage if not their entire acquaintance.

"Molly, listen to what you're saying compared to the truth of the matter. You're married to a physicist, you're hardly stupid else I wouldn't have had the patience to court you. You hold our family together, which I think more than counts in ALL of our lives." With that he stood up, leaning on his cane, and gently kissed her cheek. The doctors he'd consulted said to sooth her as best he could with words, or marital activities. If allowed to run wild, her nervous condition might begin causing her migraines and muscle pains so severe that she might require frequent doses of laudanum. Sherlock remembered his own struggles with the pain relieving qualities of laudanum, struggles that Molly had only barely understood when he'd had them.

"Please don't go away to the war, Sherlock. You needn't follow your old friend Dr. Watson to everything he does."

"I doubt they'd take me, Molly, but I will definitely endeavor. Now, let's to bed—our son will be awake much too brightly and much too early for even my tastes at this rate." He threw back the drink she'd poured him, and led her out of the study.

That night Sherlock tried not to think about John, tried not to think about the rumors about a poison gas being developed in France, or his other colleagues across the Channel. He tried to force himself to believe the idiocy that this war would be over before the New Year, that his second child's first memories would be happy ones—where neither parent was worried or absent. Well, COMPLETELY absent. He had a year in which to work, and to observe Molly's condition and behavior, and after that he would return to Cambridge and to teaching.

Molly breathed easily at his side, though she'd taken a long time to get comfortable and then fall asleep. He'd known, long ago, that she wasn't quite normal. Mycroft had warned him against marrying her, and had lobbied for several years that Sherlock have her institutionalized somehow. The scandal would be worth saving you the heartache, Sherlock, his elder brother had said.

The light that Molly brought into his life, however, was well worth her humorless jokes and her disordered temper. There were few people Sherlock had ever felt genuinely happy with other than Molly, and he tried to keep her just as happy in return. It as an easy job, he was the first to admit outside of her presence, because there just wasn't as much there to keep happy. His friendship with John Watson was a rocky but deep one because there was just so much more to KNOW about John than there was with Molly. Sherlock had wanted someone with whom he could relax, someone who wouldn't feel cheated in the amount of attention he gave them, and Molly was that person.

She'd always counted, and he would always trust her—to the extent that a delicate woman such as herself could be trusted.

* * *

Review?


End file.
